| Review:
|
To start off with this {Blu-ray} edition of "Nights
in Rodanthe" includes a hour of special features, compared
to (None) on the orginial DVD.
Now to the movie,If you can imagine every melodramatic
romance cliché ever conceived of, you'd have a pretty good
idea of what "Nights in Rodanthe" is like. This movie is
sentimental to the point of losing all credibility, which
makes me wonder why Nicholas Sparks, the author of the original
novel, didn't explore the idea as a parody. I say this because,
with so much drama crammed into just ninety-seven minutes,
many will find it impossible to take seriously. Some might
even laugh incredulously. The sad thing is that it's no
better than it wanted to be. Watching it, you'll find that
it has no ambition other than to be a syrupy, predictable
love story. Sadder still is the fact that Diane Lane and
Richard Gere--both wonderful actors--give believable performances.
With such varied bodies of work showcasing their talents,
you'd think they would have chosen a film much more credible
than this.***
The plot, in all its overwrought splendor, is as follows.
Adrienne Willis (Lane) has recently separated from her husband,
Jack (Christopher Meloni), after he had an affair. He wants
her to take him back because he knows he made a mistake.
She isn't ready to make that decision, which puts her at
odds with her moody teenage daughter, Amanda (Mae Whitman).
As for her young son, Danny (Charlie Tahan), he has been
retreating into a world of video games. When the kids go
to spend the weekend with their father in Orlando, Adrienne
takes a ferry to Rodanthe, North Carolina, where she will
temporally run a seaside inn owned by her vacationing best
friend, Jean (Viola Davis). As it turns out, Adrienne will
only have to accommodate one guest, partly because it's
the off-season and partly because the weather is getting
stormy, almost hurricane-like.***
Her guest is the recently divorced Dr. Paul Flanner
(Gere), who, not surprisingly, is dealing with his own emotional
turmoil. Most of it stems from his estranged son, Mark (an
uncredited James Franco), who stopped talking to him after
joining a medical relief effort in the remote mountains
of Central America. Paul's plan is to find Mark and reconcile
with him. But before he can do that, he has some business
to take care of in Rodanthe; a woman named Jill Torrelson
accidentally died while in his care, and now he has to face
the widowed husband, Robert (Scott Glenn), and the angry
son, Charlie (Pablo Schreiber), both of whom have started
a Wrongful Death lawsuit. Paul reasons that he did everything
he could, but the fact that he's trying to defend himself
when he should be apologizing is only making things worse.***
Anyway, we now have Adrienne and Paul, both heartbroken
people, alone together in a ramshackle inn. And wouldn't
you know it, they engage in long-winded conversations about
their troubles. Then they longingly glance at each other
as they share glasses of wine with dinner. Then they get
into a big argument just as the hurricane approaches the
North Carolina shore. As they frantically try to bolt every
window shut, they realize that they're falling in love.
And after celebrating the storm's end with the local folk,
they're finally ready to express their love. I distinctly
remember the morning after they've made love; as they lie
in bed, Paul describes Adrienne's body using geographical
terms. Her arm is a steep mountain. The small of her back
is a deep valley. Some may see this as romantic. I see this
as the cinematic equivalent to art for art's sake--it's
needlessly figurative language in an overly poignant love
story. Besides, how could even have a bed to make love on?
Wouldn't an inn build directly on the beach be destroyed
by a hurricane?***
I know this movie will find an audience. The proof
is in the vast number of drugstore romance novels published
year after year; the people who read them are the same people
who will see "Nights in Rodanthe" and actually be moved
by it. In all likelihood, they had already read Sparks'
novel and were moved before entering the theater. I might
have been moved had I not seen a major event coming from
a mile away. I obviously can't reveal what that event is,
but I can say that it makes perfect sense given the story's
reliance on melodrama. The audience is expected to cry at
a certain point, and indeed, when that point was reached,
I could hear sniffling all around me. Does this seem manipulative
to you? It sure does to me, especially since it goes hand
in hand with obligatory reconciliation scenes that are anything
but plausible. No, I can't say who reconciles with whom,
but it doesn't matter anyway because it's bad enough that
those scenes were included in the first place.***
|
| Special
Features: |
"The Nature of Love": This segment includes
interviews with director "George C. Wolfe", author
"Nicholas Sparks", along with members of the cast
and crew,that features (Gere) & (Lane), overall I found
this segment very interesting,lasting around (20) minutes.***
"In Rodanthe":Singer "Emmylou Harris"
discusses her career and her music and song to this film,
runs around (10) minutes.***
"A Time for Love" :Featurette with a talk
from author "Nicholas Sparks" career, on his novel
"Nights in Rodanthe", and its challange to being
adaptation to film,very short segment 5 minutes,I could
have listened to such much more.***
{Music Video}: (Gavin Rossdale) sings "Love Remains
the Same".***
{BD-Live Functionality}***
Standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. ***
{Digital Copy Disc}
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